Gordon, Charles George. British general. Born in Woolwich, 1833. While serving in the Crimean War, 1854-56, he was wounded at Sebastopol. For his efforts in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, 1863-64, he received the sobriquet "Chinese Gordon." After holding several important positions in the British army, Gordon took command, in 1874, of the forces which followed up Baker's explorations in Africa, in connection with which he suppressed the slave traffic on the Red Sea. In 1884, as the emissary of England, he went to the Sudan to pacify the rebellious tribes under El Mahdi, the "false prophet of the Sudan." His journey to Khartoum, made practically alone and unprotected, and the influence which his mere presence exerted upon the tribes of the desert indicated the remarkable power of his personality. He was killed when El Mahdi captured Khartoum in 1885.

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